A free throw is supposed to be one of the simplest shots in basketball. You stand still, take a breath, and shoot. Last week, South Florida’s Kendall Puryear did it in a way that nobody expected, and by the next morning, millions of people had watched it. Now one of the WNBA’s best-known shooters, Sophie Cunningham, has weighed in, and she says she knows a little about where Puryear comes from.
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“So I actually went to college with her brother, and he has a beautiful shot, and I know this girl,” Cunningham said on No Hesitation with Sophie Cunningham & Drew Hanlen.
“She’s up from the Kansas City area, and she’s a beast, but she did not used to shoot like that. So, I don’t know if I think a lot of people, when they get to certain levels, or stuff isn’t clicking, instead of grinding it out and just sometimes going through the struggle, that it’s a mental thing. So, they feel like they have to fix everything and redo, you know, years of building up your shot to this. That’s that’s a wild, that’s a wild shot form, I’d say,” she added.
South Florida opened its season with an 80-54 win over Furman in new coach Kristy Curry’s debut. Puryear, a transfer from Purdue, had a strong all-around game with 12 points, nine rebounds, four assists and three steals in 28 minutes.
But with 3:54 left in the first half, she stepped to the line and the night changed. She paused, jolted upward as if she was about to shoot in the normal way, then pulled her right arm back and heaved the ball toward the rim. She missed both free throws, the only two she attempted, and the clip took off.
By Nov. 4, the video had been viewed more than 8 million times across social media.
“This is the most chaotic, bizarre free throw shooting form I think I have ever seen,” one fan wrote on X. Others asked how no coach fixed it before college, and some compared it to Charles Barkley’s golf swing.
For a game her team won by 26, it was a strange thing to be remembered for.
Fans tried to explain it right away. Puryear was also a shot-putter in high school. She finished second at the 2024 Missouri state meet and holds the Blue Springs South school record in the event, so some people guessed the throwing motion carried over to the free-throw line. That is only a guess, and no one has confirmed it.
What is known is that free throws have not been easy for her. She shot 58.2% from the line in two seasons at Purdue.
Cunningham’s connection to the Puryear’s is real. She played at Missouri from 2015 to 2019, and Kendall’s older brother, Kevin, played for the Tigers men’s team from 2016 to 2019. That means the two were on campus at the same time.
Kevin, who is 6-foot-7, had led Blue Springs South to its first Missouri Class 5 state title in 2015 before starting 119 of the 128 games he played at Missouri. Kendall grew up in Lee’s Summit and followed him to the same high school.
Sophie Cunningham also knows a thing or two about shooting. She finished at Missouri as the school’s all-time leading scorer with 2,187 points and set its career record for free throws made with 537. Now a guard for the Indiana Fever, she is coming off her seventh WNBA season.
It also matches what Purdue fans saw. In Kendall’s freshman year, the Journal & Courier described her as a player who drained mid-range jumpers and scored with spin moves and a dream shake. She scored 14 points against Northwestern and had 10 points or more in five of six games.
She credited her brother for much of it.
“My brother set the tone for what it means to work hard,” she said at the time. She also said he taught her moves in workouts, and that he had more range than she did.
There may be another piece to the story. Kendall had reconstructive ankle surgery before her sophomore year, and during her recovery she worked on form shooting and on eliminating jumping on her free-throw attempts. Nothing connects that directly to her current form, and neither Puryear nor her coaches have explained it. Still, it shows she was already changing things at the line.
That brings the story back to Sophie Cunningham’s point. She believes players who hit a rough patch often try to rebuild everything, when the better move is to keep grinding and treat it as a mental challenge.
Whether Puryear does that or keeps the new motion is something fans will be watching. Her next trip to the line comes soon, and after Monday night, plenty of people will be tuned in.